Performance | Mindy Seu: A Sexual History of the Internet

Deemed 'the internet’s sexual historian' by the LA Times, US artist and technologist Mindy Seu brings her acclaimed participatory lecture-performance to Meanjin/Brisbane, following sell-out shows across North America, Asia, and Europe.

In A Sexual History of the Internet, Seu curates a miscellany of artifacts, art, net lore, and historical anecdotes to explore the parallel development of digital technology and sexuality. Key examples include highlighting that JPEG image compression was first tested using a Playboy centrefold (referred to as ‘Lenna’), and that an early proto-internet operating system node was jokingly truncated as ‘Sex OS’.

During Seu’s Instagram Stories-based lecture-performance, there is no podium or spotlight. Instead, the audience logs into a shared script via their phones, reading the lecture’s historical citations and anecdotes aloud in unison, transforming a lecture into a polyvocal, collective chorus sharing these histories.

Curated by Madeline Brewer and Odette Miller. This performance is presented in partnership with James St. Mindy Seu’s visit is made possible with support from Now or Never Festival, Melbourne.

Please note: This performance requires all attendees to have a charged mobile device with Instagram downloaded and functional, as well as a stable internet connection. Content includes explicit references to sex and sexual assault. It also includes bright, transmissive light in a very dark space. Recommended for ages 18+.  Please contact madeline@ima.org.au for more information.

Mindy Seu (b.1991) is an artist and technologist based in Los Angeles and New York. A Sexual History of the Internet (2025) follows her first book Cyberfeminism Index (2023), a pseudo-encyclopedia that gathers three decades of online activism and net art. A Sexual History of the Internet was commissioned by Rhizome, premiered at New York's New Museum, and received a Graham Foundation Grant. Seu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Design Media Arts, University of California, Los Angeles.